Microstory 2592: Renata Jumps Out of the Emergency Exit, and Falls About One Story Down

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Renata jumps out of the emergency exit, and falls about one story down. She lands on her feet, bending them to absorb the shock, and stopping herself from hitting her face by holding her hands out at her sides. Quidel is clear at the back of the plane, still by the ramp. He runs over when he sees her do that. “Are you okay? What the hell were you thinking? Just because this thing was never in the air, doesn’t mean you weren’t high up.”

“I’m just testing my limits,” she answers casually as she’s brushing the dust off of her hands.

“Well, you’re not invincible, and you can still feel pain.”

“I can’t feel pain if I don’t want to, and just be glad I didn’t jump out of the crew door.”

He looks up at the cockpit, which is closer to three stories high. “You would break your legs. Even an android can’t survive that, unless it’s specifically designed to, which you’re not, because that would be a waste. This isn’t Underbelly.”

“I don’t know what that means.” She looks around at the desert. They are in a very remote region of Osman, miles and miles from the nearest city. They’re not trying to go anywhere in particular here. They’re just trying to keep this device far away from Libera. It’s not that she can’t get to this dome, but perhaps she won’t find them here if they’re well-hidden. That’s Spycraft 101. Lycander says that the dome has security cameras that allow beings on the outside to monitor progress, but the don’t cover everywhere. They don’t see everything. Even Ambients don’t permanently record what they see. That would be too much data to track and manage, especially since most of it is innocuous. So they should be safe enough running into a local, and not thinking that their coordinates are going to leak out. “Where is this MIS contact of yours?”

He looks over her shoulder, so she turns around to see a roofless off-roader heading their way. “She’s right on time, as per usual,” he says. She looks back at him. He’s smiling. He likes this girl. That could be dangerous. Relationships are always a risk, whether they work for the same agency, a different one, or if they’re a civilian. That’s Spycraft 101.

“She’s pretty,” Renata notes as the car draws nearer, but not near enough to make out enough detail for her to make that claim.

“For the last time, androids do not have telescopic vision. It’s not necessary. It just adds bulk and complexity to an already overengineered design. Why are you lying?”

“I’m a spy. It’s what we do,” Renata explains.

He sighs. “Since you were fishing, I’ll bite anyway. Yes, she’s beautiful. But you should know that we’re not supposed to be friends. Some spies are players, and some are not, and we’re not supposed to distinguish each other. We’re to treat everything as real, and not talk about the outside world.”

“Fair enough. I won’t mention anything about how my entire reality has just crumbled, and I don’t know what to believe anymore, and I’m having a massive internal existential crisis that I can’t talk to anyone about because I can’t trust anyone who knows the truth too, and I have never felt more alone.”

He gently tugs at her shoulder so she’s facing him again. “Is that true?”

Renata scoffs. “No. Take a joke.”

He knows she’s lying.

“What joke?” Lycander asks as he’s walking up from the plane, having secured it appropriately.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you,” Renata says as the Elbin agent pulls up. “My name is Renata Granger.”

The agent steps out of the car, and peers at her over her sunglasses, sizing her up. She chuckles at Quidel. “Found another one, huh? she asks him in a posh Elbin accent. Or maybe it’s actually British?”

“The first one, I think,” Quidel replies.

The Elbin woman smiles. “The one you’ve really been after this whole time.” She takes her sunglasses off completely, and gets a better look at Renata, like a vet examining a pregnant cow. “She understands where we are?”

Quidel notices Renata’s confusion. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, but had only gotten to the background info. You can be open and honest with Martina. She’s helped me move other conscious Exemplars and Ambients to safe places.”

“Call me Demuri, or just Demo,” she says, shaking Renata’s hand. “I chose to use a different name when I came to Spydome, but like he said, we’re all friends here now.”

Quidel nods approvingly. “She is not why we’re here, though. We need to secure a package. The person who’s after it has god-tier powers.”

Demo takes her glasses off again, and looks at him incredulously. “I don’t know what that means. Is that some kind of codeword that I was supposed to have memorized?”

“No, she has actual magic powers. According to these two, she disappeared before their eyes.”

Demo shrugs. “Holograms. Easy.”

“We were on a catwalk. They should have detected her footsteps. Before I killed my last substrate, she did show up suddenly, so I should have heard footsteps while I was still there with them.”

“Okay, well neither invisibility nor teleportation is a thing, in any dome. Not even Underbelly, which is designed to give you superhuman powers, can break the laws of physics, so I don’t know what they think they saw, but they didn’t see that.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Quidel says, shaking his head. “I just wouldn’t bet on it. I trust them. I trust their perspectives.”

“I’ll accept that,” Demo acknowledges. “Regardless, we need to get to the safehouse. Fair warning, they are not luxury accommodations.”

“I’m a robot, so I can sleep anywhere,” Renata says.

“I wish I hadn’t ever said that to you,” Quidel complains.

“I’m glad you did,” Renata contends. “That’s when I finally started waking up.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 16, 2498

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Olimpia had been working here for a few weeks now, and everything was going great. He had an assistant before her, but he was nothing special. She quickly learned to anticipate Mateo’s needs, and they had developed a nice rapport with each other. Being the Fleet Commander for the entire Central Midwest region meant that he had to do a lot of traveling. It wasn’t all over the country, of course, but it was a regular thing. He had just spent most of the last week in Cedar Rapids, which was horrible enough, but going it alone was just too much. Typically, the office assistant stayed in the office, so they could respond to driver issues from their desk, and take in any walk-ins. But with SRW headphones and a cell phone capable of accepting forwarded calls, she really could do her job from just about anywhere. Ramses always stayed next to his precious servers, so he could answer the door if anyone were to show up. Mateo really needed Olimpia there with him when he was on the road. “Are you interested in that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s not a monarchy,” he reminded her. “I didn’t hire you for travel, and that’s not in the job description. It would therefore come with a new job description, and a modest wage increase. You can say no, though.”

“I have no ties,” Olimpia replied with a shake of her head. “Before I found you, I was applying to jobs in most of the lower 48 states. I like to move around, and stay busy. Honestly—and I probably shouldn’t tell you this—I get bored with a job after a few years, and tend to start looking elsewhere. If I’m traveling, I’m sure it won’t get so tedious.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Mateo said. “I know I just got back, but I have to fly up to Minneapolis tomorrow, and I could really use your help.”

“I didn’t think Minnesota was in our region,” Olimpia said.

“It’s not, I’m meeting with my equivalent for the Northern Midwest. The guy from the Northern Mountain region will be there too. I’m not a hundred percent sure what it’s about. I think they want to have some kind of convention, or something. This has been on the books for a couple months.”

“Well, I’m in, I’ll change the plane tickets.”

“Great! And hey, why don’t you come for dinner tonight, meet the family? My daughter is cooking something. She’s gotten really good lately. It will be vegetarian though, so if you have a problem...”

“No, I can be there, that sounds great. I really appreciate it, sir.”

“You can just call me Mateo. We’re not formal here.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ramses said, appearing at the entrance to Mateo’s cubicle. He stretched, and pretended to take a drink from a flask.

“Don’t worry, it’s empty,” Mateo explained to Olimpia. “We got those as gifts at a company retreat last year. Ridiculous, if you ask me, but I like how they etched in the RideSauce logo.”

“Oh, yeah.” Olimpia was being polite, but she didn’t care.

“Well, I’ll see you at 17:30 for dinner? I’ll be sure to get you home early enough to pack for the trip. We’ll be gone for three days.”

“I’m already packed,” she said. “I haven’t unpacked since I came to Kansas City.”

“We’ll be traveling a lot,” Mateo reminded her, “but you should still try to dig in and put down some roots.”

“I’ll get right on that. Why don’t we ride to your house together?”

“Okay.”

That evening, after work, Mateo called a RideSauce Hot. He usually went with a Mild, because he didn’t want to feel like an elitist, but he wanted to impress Olimpia. Plus, Boyd liked to hang out in this area around the end of the work day specifically in hopes of answering a request from the boss. It was unclear what he was after, because he wasn’t really on track for a promotion. Maybe he was just a bit of a kiss-ass, and couldn’t help himself. He didn’t qualify for the request today, though, not with that jalopy he was driving. A bluish-purple Aevum Magnitude showed up instead. The driver stepped out, and came around to let them in the back like a real chauffeur. That was part of what you were paying for when you selected Hot.

“Thanks,” Mateo began before remembering that he didn’t notice the name on the app.

“Dave, sir,” the driver replied. He was dressed in the full get-up, all black with a sleek driving cap.

“Dave,” Mateo echoed. He slipped him a 20-dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir.” Dave shut the door behind him, and went around to get back in the car. He received another 20-buck tip at the end of the ride.

Mateo laughed when his daughter answered the door. She was wearing 2450s housewife attire; a pink shirtwaist dress with darker pink flowers and a pleated skirt. Her hair was done up however you would think for that time period, though he didn’t know what to call it. She had deep red lipstick, and smiled in that fake, dying-on-the-inside, sort of way. “Welcome to our home? May I take your coat?”

“Why, that would be swell, ya see? Thanks, sweetheart, you’re a doll.”

“That’s the 2440s, dad,” Romana complained. She shook it off. “Hi, you must be Olimpia. I’m Romana.”

They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. I’m Olimpia. I mean—you just said that.” She was embarrassed.

Romana smiled kindly. “I really will take your coats. Come on in.”

They sipped tea and talked for about a half hour in the kitchen while Romana was finished preparing the food. Leona helped, but Romana was running the show. It was typically Mateo’s job to stay out of the way when they were in their teacher-student mode. He felt uncomfortable this time since he was expected to be in here while entertaining their guest. Fortunately, they had a rather large kitchen. This was the kind of thing you got when you lived in Mission Hills. Olimpia seemed a little uncomfortable too as she was looking up at the architecture, probably because she wasn’t used to all this fancy stuff that rich people had. Or he could have been completely misinterpreting everything. Maybe she just didn’t like him. Or she was starving, and this was taking too long. Or she was craving meat, and was just trying to get through this. That was enough of letting his neuroses take over. He could have been misinterpreting her facial expressions entirely. It was time to eat.

Dinner was lovely, Romana really was getting a lot better. It was probably time that she stepped out from under her mother’s wing, and started seriously thinking about culinary school. She was acting a little weird while they were eating, like she was keeping a secret. Maybe she was about to reveal to them that she knew exactly where she wanted to study, and Olimpia’s presence was overshadowing the announcement. “Lechuga, is there something you wanna tell us?”

“What? No.” she answered.

“Wait, why Lechuga?” Olimpia had to ask.

Mateo smirked. “Romana, romaine, lettuce, lechuga.”

“Oh.” Olimpia giggled.

“There’s something on your mind. You can tell us,” Leona encouraged her daughter. “You know we don’t tell lies in this house.”

Romana sighed, but it was more like a coo. “Okay. Well, you know that I wanted to go to culinary school.”

They nodded, even Olimpia, who just wanted to fit it.

“Well, Boyd said there’s a great one in Hawaii.”

“Boyd, who the hell is Boyd?” Mateo questioned.

“Boyd Maestri, your...driver.”

Mateo feigns ignorance. “Uh, I don’t have a driver named Boyd Maestri who is between 15 and 18 years old. I think you’re confused.” Mateo was never under the impression that his daughter wouldn’t eventually grow up and become sexually active, but there were still rules. The half your age plus seven rule may not have had any scientific basis, but it seemed sound to him. Boyd was way too old for her, and Mateo wouldn’t have it.

“Relax, dad, we’re not doing anything. We just talk sometimes.”

“Why would he be talking to you?” Mateo pressed.

“Calm down, Matt,” Leona urged.

“No. I’m going to be however I need to be,” Mateo insisted. “I get it, Romana. I want you to understand that you did nothing wrong. But he did. I don’t know what you two talk about in your secret little phone calls. It could be politics, or the weather, or cooking. It doesn’t matter. It’s about the reason that he’s talking to you. Even if you don’t see it, I do, because I was him. Your mother was a lot younger than me when we first met. But we didn’t really start talking until we were the same age.”

Romana winced, as did everyone else. “What do you mean, she was younger? How could she have aged while you stayed the same?”

Mateo uttered a single unintelligible sound before he became blocked and frozen. He could not explain what he had just said. Leona was younger? And then she got older, and now  they were the same age? That didn’t make any sense at all. He had to cover. He had to figure a way out of this. “You know what I mean, she was just a little too young for me, but as we both aged at the same time, the gap remained the same, but it became less pronounced.” That wasn’t right either. They were the same age!

“And how long would I have to wait before someone Boyd’s age would be appropriate for me?”

“Someone Boyd’s age? Maybe ten years. Boyd himself? Uh, after the sun goes supernova, I guess.”

“The sun’s not going to go supernova, it’s going to expand, cool off, and shrink,” Leona clarified.

Mateo narrowed his eyes at her wife. “Thanks.”

Romana scoffed. “For your information, I know what boys want from me. I mean...look at me. It’s irrelevant what Boyd thinks he’s gonna get in return for helping me, because if I don’t wanna give it, I won’t. He has a friend who works at the Hilo Culinary Arts Institute, so I’m using him however I must to get into that school. We can’t all have careers that fall into our laps just because we got a 100% on our first driving tests, and it inflated our egos.”

“It was 101%,” Mateo reminded her. “I corrected one of the questions for its ambiguity.”

“Oh, how could I forget?” Ramona said in a mocking tone, crossing her arms.

“You can get into whatever school you want, Lechuga—”

“You don’t call me that when we’re fighting,” she argued in a raised voice.

He closed his eyes. They did agree to that. It was a pet name, and those should not be associated with negative emotions or hostilities. “Romana. You’re extremely talented, and we are doing well for ourselves. You don’t have to go to a school nearby, though I would love to have you stay in the area. What I will not tolerate is you using someone for their connections. I’m not saying that you should give it up for him instead, but I didn’t raise you to exploit people any more than I raised you to be careless with your heart and body. You are to treat others with kindness and respect, and if that means losing out on an opportunity, then that’s what will happen. Your integrity is more important.”

This seemed to speak to her. “Yeah,” she said in a lowered voice. She let out an exasperated and disappointed sigh. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for starting a fight.” He turned his attention. “Olimpia, I’m sorry that you saw us fight.”

“It’s okay,” she replied sincerely.

There was an awkward silence, which Leona broke. “I didn’t want to be completely useless tonight, so I made the dessert all by myself. Who here likes sand cake?”

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Microstory 2377: Earth, October 20, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I have indeed been appreciating the health updates. You’ll notice that I started sending you mine too. If you would rather not receive them, though, just let me know. I can’t remember if you get charged for incoming messages, or what. Speaking of which, I did send one to Velia. I’m sure she’s told you about that, though. I talked a lot about clothes, because that’s all I really know about her. It’s nice to know that she’s been there for you since I can’t, and never could. I’m glad that you’re back to your normal self. Our conversations have been pretty negative lately because of it, and that’s all my fault. If you want to be more positive, we can move on to lighter topics. I still want to make sure that you’re doing okay, but I’ve let go of some of my anger about the whole thing, and I won’t harp on it anymore. I’ll let you take the lead on it. I will tell you that dad is going on a trip. He says that it’s for his job, but what he doesn’t realize is that, as his assistant, I have access to his travel forms. He used the code for new trade opportunities. He really shouldn’t be looking for those since we’re preoccupied with Australia at the moment, and it wouldn’t make any sense for him to fly all the way to Eastern Seaboard, U.S.A. while we’re down under. He’s obviously on the hunt for our old neighbor, and while he hasn’t admitted that he’s found the guy’s current location, I’m sure that that’s where he’s going. I guess we’ll know eventually whether he uncovered new information about our pasts, or didn’t. Don’t worry, he’s not breaking any laws or policies by traveling for personal reasons. As long as he does some work out there—talking to producers, vendors, and other domes—he’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time he’s caught up with old contacts, and our superiors are fully aware of how it works. It’s all about networking, so almost nothing is off limits unless he just lounges on a beach, or something. Last bit of news, I received a message—not from my nurse from when I was a kid—but her office manager. He said that she’s presently incommunicado in a really dangerous territory, trying to save lives. He hasn’t relayed my letter yet, but once she returns, he’s sure that she’ll want to talk to me. If this were an emergency, he would try to get through to her, but this isn’t a rush, so I’m just going to have to be patient.

Home alone,

Condor

Microstory 2376: Vacuus, October 14, 2179

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Dear Condor,

It’s nice to hear from you. I know that you weren’t writing that open letter directly to me, but it felt very personal, even though I’ve never experienced anything like what you did. I’ve heard more about you from Corinthia. I’ve known about your whole situation almost as long as she has. You and I have a lot in common. My grandfather was the Chief Helmsman of the ship that brought us to this planet, and before that, he was a space shuttle pilot, and before that, an airline pilot. I spent a lot of time on the bridge with him at the helm as we were on our way out here. He would tell me stories about all the places that he used to travel to back on Earth. I’m younger than you, so I have never set foot on your world before. I guess that’s what fascinates me so much, because I feel like I have all these somewhat similar personal experiences. I know that they’re not my own, though. I dunno, I suppose I just felt a connection with you that I’m probably making up in my own head. As for clothes, I do like them, but not necessarily any more than anyone else. I gravitated towards this job partially because there was an opening, and partially because I probably have even less of an interest in going outside than Corinthia does. I just want to stay in my little room where it’s safe. My work area doesn’t even have a window, because some of the rooms have to be on the interior sections, and they can’t all be lavatories and closets. My job is really not that hard. It may be more involved than your sister’s on a day-to-day basis, but there’s a whole lot less pressure. If I mess something up, I can usually fix it before anyone else sees it. The truth is that anyone could do this, because the fabricators do most of the work. I don’t even know how to sew by hand all that well. I did learn, but I don’t use those skills at work. I’m mostly there in a supervisory role. The machines aren’t hard to operate, but rather than training everyone who needs clothes, they only worry about making sure that I know them, and I make sure that nothing gets screwed up. It’s pretty low-key. I have some free time, which I typically spend making up new designs. I’m not exceptional at it, but there are no deadlines, so I eventually figure out what it needs to look like. Corinthia has actually tested out a lot of my own clothes for me. She says she likes them, but you never really know, right? She could just be being polite. I did design the outfit that I’m wearing in the attached photo, so you can tell me what you think. Be honest. Cori thinks there’s too much cleavage, but maybe you have a different opinion?

Hugs and kisses,

Velia

PS: I like your outfit too. It fits you well, though I would imagine just about anything does with a body like that. Trust me, I'm a professional.

Microstory 2362: Earth, August 6, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

It’s true, I don’t need to hear certain details about your love life, but I want you to feel comfortable telling me what’s going on with you. I guess it’s a little strange that we’ve never brought it up before. Ya know, when we talk about the population decline on this planet, people often cite the poisoned atmosphere as the primary cause of it, but the truth is a lot more nuanced. Yes, obviously people died from it, and not just from the gases themselves—there were a lot of related effects, like failures in infrastructure maintenance that made the old cities less safe—but there were less overt repercussions too. The biggest consequence of the end of the old world was how isolated it made us from each other. You used to be able to take a bus to the airport, get on a flight, and be on the other side of the world in a matter of hours. You could travel just about anywhere with hardly any time to plan. Our jets are faster than ever, but the preparation for these flights takes so much more effort. If you want to go somewhere, you better damn well be sure that that’s where you wanna be, because there is no guarantee that you’re gonna be back. Because of all these limitations, and more, it’s much harder for some of us to meet someone. People are having fewer kids than they did in the past, because they have a hard time finding suitable partners. I won’t even get into population control mandates, but the only things keeping us from bursting at the seams are the people who do the transportation jobs like we used to have, and those building new settlements, or expanding preexisting habitats. This is all to say that I’ve not had much luck on the relationship front myself. I’ve moved around more than most. Our clients had to move too, but once we placed them at their new homes, they were free to settle down, and develop bonds within their respective communities. We just kept moving. I’ve gone on a few dates here under this ocean dome, but none of them has led to anything special. I’m not opposed to it, but we’re not getting any younger, so I’ve kind of learned to not get my hopes up about it anymore. I’m glad that you’ve found someone with the potential to last. I don’t think your age gap is all that big of a deal. And what are ya gonna do, let it get in your way? I say, love is love. As long as you’re consenting adults, and neither one is exerting any unfair power over the other, you should be allowed to do whatever feels right. But I’ll warn you, so you can warn him, if he hurts you, no interplanetary void is wide enough to keep him safe from my wrath. Okay, I’m done being overprotective again. Hey, dad didn’t tell me what he put in his latest letter to you, but I hope you’re pleased with it, and feeling okay. Tell me however much you want.

Love ya,

Condor

Microstory 2343: Earth, March 25, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

It’s funny that you bring up transportation between safe zones, because that’s what we used to do before we came to this floating dome for permanent residency. For security reasons, pilots really preferred not to leave their secure cockpits, so they would hire other people to actually leave the aircraft, and help travelers load and unload. That’s what my dad would do for work, but it was more than that. I don’t remember how he got into it, because I was doing something on my own at the time, but I ended up working on the transport crafts too. I was a sort of flight attendant, but more for safety, and less for customer service. These people were fleeing very dangerous situations, so they didn’t need to be coddled and doted on, they just needed to know how to use their seatbelts, and where the emergency hazmat suits were. Anyway, for dad, it wasn’t as easy as climbing down the steps, and ushering people inside. We primarily dealt with families, the individual members of which often disagreed about leaving their homes, or where they should go. You have to remember, these were the early days of the poisoning of the atmosphere. It didn’t just all happen at once. A lot of safe zones were still open areas, rather than airtight domes. And a lot of the not-so-safe zones were still technically habitable, leading many to believe that the air would one day be cleaned up. They were wrong, but not crazy for holding out hope. No one knew how bad things would get. Few could have known. The ones that did were either very intelligent and observant, but few and far between, or responsible for destroying the environment themselves, and deliberately withholding pertinent information. Either way, the general population wasn’t hearing it. The bulk of dad’s job was convincing people that where they were living was no longer healthy enough for them, and they had to move somewhere else. The answer to where kept changing, and the number and size of the safezones kept shrinking, but we kept working. Because of his naturally diplomatic personality, and because he continued to develop his skills in this area, he was ultimately selected for the position he has now in this dome. It was still a very nascent development back then, having only recently achieved its vacuum seal, and they were in need of population growth. By then, transportation was big business. It had become easier to persuade people to move, so the qualifications for the job were now less rigorous. So others could do it who couldn’t before, and there were so many more aircraft that could be used for this. In the past, jets just had doors that led right to the fuselage. Now we need both an airlock, and a decontamination chamber. Older craft were retrofitted with these additions, but newer ones have been designed with these necessities. I’m getting a little off-topic, but yes, transportation is no joke. And to answer your question, I can indeed see the coast of Australia from our cabin, but only from my dad’s room. Mine’s on the other side. Now, if we were traveling clockwise...

Also in a vacuum,

Condor

Microstory 2330: Earth, December 24, 2178

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Dear Corinthia,

Merry Christmas! Do you observe Christmas up there among the stars? Well, we don’t, for the most part. I studied it in school once, learning the traditions that people used to maintain. They would celebrate their family, and promote world peace. A lot of the things they did sound kind of arbitrary and silly to me, like cutting down trees, or exchanging gifts, but the message of togetherness sounds nice. I don’t know exactly why religion declined. I mean, I know why; because none of it is real, but I don’t know precisely how it happened. We’re just lacking in perspective, I guess, since we were born on this side of it. Anyway, we still say Merry Christmas to each other on this day, but that’s really it. People don’t really know what it means, it’s just become second nature. You can’t live somewhere far from your family, and then come home for a few days before going back. Travel just isn’t the same for us as it was in the past. Back then, if you built a life for yourself in another region, this would be an excuse to go back to visit where you came from. But now, separating yourself from your family is all but irreversible. There are those who work in some of the more dangerous corners of the planet, and send money home, but they don’t get vacation time. Only when their job ends—be it from losing it, or having made enough to quit—will they try to return to their families, but there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed. I was just wondering if people on Vacuus even acknowledge that this time of the year used to be a thing, or if you’ve even heard of it in the first place. Or...do you go all out with thick themed sweaters, hanging stockings, and seasonal hot drinks? Has there been some resurgence in popularity thanks to someone who happened to be on the ship who really wanted to bring back old traditions? Ha, is any of this making any sense to you, or did you have to search your database? Even though we don’t participate in the same sort of things that our ancestors used to when they believed in superstitions, I think some of the things they did were decent, and I regret that they’ve gone away. They thought they had it bad when their children moved out of the house, and decided to live on the other side of the country, or even in another country. They had no idea how good they had it, always being just an aircraft ride away from each other. I’m not sure that I understand whether there are other people on your mission who left loved ones behind, or if all of their interplanetary communication is strictly professional. Even if there are others, that’s still a very low number of people in this boat. No one else in the solar system has to deal with the kind of distance that we do. All I’m trying to say is, even though we never met, I miss you.

Happy holidays (they used to say this instead when members of competing religions didn’t want to offend each other),

Condor

PS: I’ve not yet asked dad about connecting you two to each other. By the time this message reaches you, however, he and I will have talked about it. I promise.

Microstory 2298: With All the Snow and Ice

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I’m writing this on the plane. I spent all day at the airport, because my flight kept getting delayed. There’s a big snowstorm in the east that I feel shouldn’t have much impact on my flight up to Chicago, but what do I know? The purpose of leaving one day early was to get a jump in the preparations for Nick and Dutch’s memorial, but it looks like that’s not going to do me any good. Still, who knows what would have happened if I had just stuck to my original flight tomorrow. Anyway, I bought the WiFi, and have maintained contact with the publicity firm and the venue. Everything is fine, and getting set up. A word of warning, we have not set aside any hotel accommodations for this event. People have been asking about that, and I totally forgot to tell you before. You have to work through that on your own. I’m sorry, but this is so last minute, and we have no idea who is going to come. Perhaps if we had taken more time, we could have done a lot more on our end, but at some point, it would have felt like a little too much. Sure, we have money, but that doesn’t mean we’re gonna spend it on frivolity. Nick wouldn’t like that. It’s not a party, it’s not a convention, it’s a farewell. And it will be streamed online, so if you can’t make it, it’s not like you’re missing out. We actually considered that at the very beginning, holding it in a very small venue, and letting other people be part of it from the comfort of their own homes. Thinking back now, he might have preferred that, because then we’re letting it be available passively, instead of expecting a large crowd. But it’s too late now, and I don’t want to dwell on the past. This is what we’re doing, and it’s going to go great. I’ll see some of you Friday. Until then (and even afterwards), stay safe out there with all the snow and ice. Trust me, I know how dangerous it can be.

Microstory 2258: Loyal and Protective

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So the reporters are gone, but that doesn’t mean people have stopped coming to our house. We’re still getting harassers, but not because they want to know our story. What they want is money. Kelly, despite being so young, has known a lot of people throughout her life. She took a wide array of classes in high school, and participated in a ton of extracurricular activities. She’s easy to get along with, and is well-liked by her peers. But she only had a small group of real friends. They know who they are, and they’ve supported her during this crazy ordeal. Others just want a payday, and they’re contriving deeper relationships with her in their respective headcanons in order to leverage them for personal gain. I’m rich now, and so are Dutch and Kelly. Many of the latter’s former contacts have been showing up, suddenly showing interest in her life, and they could not be more transparent. Their motives are obvious, to me, to Kelly, and most importantly, to our security team. These people aren’t camping out on the lawn, fortunately, but they do keep ringing that bell. They wouldn’t be able to do that, of course, without the reporters having doxxed us, but I don’t want to get into another rant about that. I just need to clear the air. The money that we now have is not for fun. It’s not so we can buy a private jet, and a megayacht. It’s not so we can start adding caviar to every meal. We have a job to do, and this capital allows us to do it. Our house is as big as it is because there are three of us, we’re not romantically linked, and we need room for live-in security, as well as some home office space. We see it as an investment in our well-being and responsibilities, not as a status symbol. We’re giving money away to charities, and social programs, not to just random individuals, no matter how big of a crush they purportedly had on one of us in ninth grade history class. I hope that all makes sense, because I’m loyal and protective, and if you start making one of my people feel uncomfortable and unsafe, then you’ll find yourself feeling the same things. Understood? Okay, then I don’t think we need to talk about it again.

Extremus: Year 74

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A year later, and Tinaya is still made of glass, but she’s doing okay, and adjusting to her new life. Solid walls no longer faze her. She’s gotten used to walking right through them whenever she needs to. She’s not technically phasing through them though, as one would conventionally picture a superhero’s atoms curving around the object’s atoms without interacting. It’s more like she makes the atoms disappear, even while they appear to still be present. There is a time when the house that Belahkay built for him and Spirit is standing there by the river. And there is a time when that house isn’t there at all; it doesn’t exist yet. What Tinaya does when she’s passing through the wall is steal little bits of spacetime from the past, specifically the mostly empty air that was once occupying the area that is now occupied by the wall. While it may look like Tinaya and the wall exist in the same point simultaneously, a clever bit of time travel allows her to become the only solid object in that moment. There has only ever been one recorded case of someone with this temporal ability. It was reported in the early 23rd century, on a ship called the Sharice Davids, but this was never confirmed.

While Tinaya was learning to accept her new physiological situation, she also needed to accept her new life in general. She is on a planet in the middle of nowhere with almost no hope of reconnecting with her friends and family back on Extremus. They considered manufacturing a long-range communications device of some kind, but ultimately decided against it. The True Extremists who now live somewhere kind of close to this area are under the impression that Verdemus was destroyed. There could be spies from this civilization amongst the people of the ship. They were there before; there could be more who have as of yet not been found. Even if they’re all eventually rooted out, the nature of time travel places all intel at risk at any other point in time. It simply isn’t safe to return, if the people on the ship could even find a way to backtrack. This is their home now, and they are better off acknowledging that. Tinaya has finally managed to do that today. She’s in a good place, and ready to move forward. Today is also the first day that she’s going to speak with the prisoner.

Everyone had a job to do on this planet in the beginning, but thanks to Belahkay’s extensive understanding of automated engineering, they don’t have to do a single thing at all anymore. Agricultural robots tend the fields. Kitchen robots make the food. Construction robots build the structures. This is like a permanent vacation. Of course, automation is the name of the game back in the stellar neighborhood too, but people still pursue goals. There’s no way to advance the human race here, though, so the simple life is the only rational pursuit. There is still plenty that they’re missing. The boy’s mother, Lilac was assigned to be Hock Watcher for their one prisoner, who was not fit to serve his time on Extremus, where he might be discovered by someone who was not aware of the persistent human presence on this world. Since her job was mostly incredibly boring, she was allowed to bring the majority of central archives, including the grand repository and the core compendium, with her. She was not, however, given copies of any of the virtual stacks. She wouldn’t be very good at watching if she were spending time in a simulation. Niobe was living too simple of a life in Exin territory where she was a slave-in-training, so she’s been eager to learn computers now, hoping to one day build the Verdemusians virtual worlds to explore. Tinaya isn’t worried about that right now, not only because there’s still plenty they don’t know about this world, but also because all she can think about is Ilias Tamm.

“First Chair Leithe, you’ve finally come.”

“I’m not First Chair anymore,” Tinaya volleys.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“You better. My chances of going back to that ship aren’t much higher than yours.” She looks around at his four walls.

“I’m holding out hope,” Ilias says cryptically.

She sighs. “Why did you ask to see me?”

“That explosion killed most of the people who were living here.”

“The explosion that you caused,” she reminds him.

He shuts his eyelids. “I’m not arguing that. I’m stating a fact to lead to a point.”

“Well, get on with it.”

“The Hock Watcher is the only survivor, besides the children, who know nothing. Many secrets died with the rest of the victims. Why do you think I was here?”

“You wanted a pardon for your father.”

He smirks. “It was more than that. I wanted you on these lands, so you could uncover those secrets. Yes, I wanted to restore my father’s name, but it will do him no good, since he’s already dead.”

“What are you saying, there’s a conspiracy of some kind?”

“Well, we’re talking about Extremus; of course there’s a conspiracy. You’re part of at least two of them. How’s Thistle doing, last you spoke with him? Still one hundred percent sentient?”

“No comment.” He isn’t supposed to know about that.

He doesn’t mind her stonewalling him. “Tell me, what is the purpose of the Extremus mission? What are we trying to do?”

“We’re trying to find a home in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.”

Ilias flinches as if that’s a bad answer. “Why? What’s the point of that?”

“It has its intrinsic value. The mission is the mission.”

This makes him laugh. “That’s a nice tautology, but it’s bullshit. Everyone who started this is dead now, and they mostly did not pass their motivations onto the latter generations. My bloodline is an exception. And I’ll explain it to you, if you want.”

“Only if you’re not lying...”

He nods slightly. “Operation Starseed is a secret subprogram under Project Stargate, designed to seed human-based life all over the galaxy, starting from the stellar neighborhood, and propagating outwards. The galaxy is a couple hundred thousand light years wide, which means it will take about that long to reach the whole thing. The point of Extremus is quite simply...to beat ‘em to the punch. It’s a race, and Extremus is trying to win it.”

“Okay. Well, that’s a pretty cynical way to put it. What does that have to do with Verdemus anyway?”

“It has everything to do with Verdemus, as well as the Goldilocks Corridor and the True Extremists-slash Exins. The goal of the farthest reaches of the galaxy has always been vaguely defined. Who wins this race has therefore always been determined by your definition of that goal. Bronach Oaksent decided that the goal was in the past. He won the race thousands of years before any of us were born. He didn’t just beat Extremus, he beat modern Earth. Verdemus is just another off-shoot of that idea. The people who were meant to live here would have been just as much Extremusians as our descendants will be, who will exit the ship together on a hypothetical world out there.”

“No, that’s not true. The goal was a factor of the time that we were going to spend on the journey. That’s why there were nine captains planned, because it was going to last 216 years. This is not Planet Extremus, and not only because we didn’t literally call it that. We’re not even halfway across the galaxy yet.”

Ilias nods again, but more substantially. He removes a piece of paper from under his pillow, and sticks his arm through the bars. “Go to these coordinates. You’ll see what I mean. I’m right about this.”

Tinaya reluctantly accepts the sheet. “What the hell is this? What are coordinates? Is this based on the Earthan system? We’re not on Earth.”

“Turn it over,” he urges. “I stashed a satnav there that’s coded to Verdemus’ coordinate system,” he goes on when she flips it to the back where there’s a map to a second location using the settlement as the origin, and various large landmarks as points of reference.

“Why didn’t you just draw a map to the coordinates?” she asks.

“That’s about a quarter way around the world,” he explains. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to walk there.”

“The satellite up there is new,” she begins to argue. “It doesn’t have a coordinate system, because it’s just a warning station. The original ones, which would have been programmed with such a system, were destroyed by the crew of the Iman Vellani, because they might be detected by the Exin invaders.”

He shakes his head dismissively. “The data is in my satnav. It will send the program to the new satellite once you establish the link. It will take some doing, but the way I hear it, you know your way around a microchip.”

Tinaya reluctantly follows the map, and digs up the lockbox. She punches his code in, and retrieves the device that he was talking about. It does indeed take a little work to find a way to interface it with the orbiting satellite. Once she manages to do it, her window to actually use it closes up. In order for it to be able to warn them of external threats, it can’t remain in geostationary orbit, which would place it above them at all times. It’s constantly moving around the world, so she enjoys a limited amount of time before it disappears over the horizon, forcing her to wait. The good thing about this is that it can effectively map the coordinate system that it has just learned to the actual geography. A geostationary satellite would not be good enough to help her get to where she needs to be. About an hour and a half later, the coordinates are locked in, and the device receives an accurate set of directions. The easy part is over.

Tinaya walks over to Belahkay’s workshop where he’s building them something, or rather working on something that a robot will build when the plans are ready. “Hey, Tiny,” he says. That’s what he calls her.

“I need the jet.”

“The jet?” he questions, surprised. “Wadya need that for?”

“Fishing,” she lies.

“I hear the..bass is good on the..third continent.”

He slowly smiles, and twists his chin. “All right, I’ll let you have the jet, but I’m going with you.”

“No, I would like to be alone. That’s part of what I enjoy about fishing.”

“Tiny, I’ve never synthesized any fishing gear for you, and you’ve never mentioned it before. You’re obviously lying, which is fine, but I’m not letting you go off alone; you’re literally made of glass.”

“Ugh, everyone’s always saying that. It’s magic glass, I can’t break.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe you just haven’t got hitten hard enough.”

“Hitten?”

“It’s a word, don’t look it up. So how’s about it? I’m goin’, or no one’s goin’...? Or I’m goin’...?”

“Okay, fine. But don’t ask questions, I don’t have the answers. And you have to promise to not tell anyone what we find unless I tell you it’s okay.”

“Very well. Just let me run a preflight check, and we’ll go.”

They came up with a quick lie about the two of them wanting to feel like free birds, far, far away. The rest of the group bought it because they had no reason to believe that they were being deceived. The six of them spent time together, and they spent time apart. Aristotle went on a hike alone for a week a couple of months ago, and no one tried to stop him. He stayed in contact the whole time, and agreed to let an aerial sentinel drone fly over his head at all times. As mentioned before, this is basically all one big, long vacation.

The jet that Belahkay engineered is sleek and modern, but it’s not hypersonic. It will be some time before they mine the necessary raw materials to build anything like that, and it might not be necessary anyway. The point of getting halfway around the world in a few hours would be to connect people to each other. There’s no one else where they’re going. At least there shouldn’t be anyway. Perhaps that’s where Ilias is leading her. It could be a trap too, but it’s unlikely that he ever had enough power here to set anything like that up so far from the settlement. They didn’t find any preexisting jets over the course of the last two years, nor any place that they would have been manufactured. What could possibly be all the way out here?

A building, that’s what. A series of nested buildings, in fact. Belahkay lands the jet in an open field, and then they get out to walk back there. They’ve already seen it from the air, but they want to get a more detailed picture. Tinaya remembers learning about these in class. In the late 21st century, most people lived in arcological megastructures that towered over the landscape kilometers high, and could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. But they didn’t go straight from modest highrises to this hypercondensed style of living. They gradually worked up to them. They built superblocks first, which housed hundreds of people, and later thousands. Then they upgraded to megablocks, which housed tens of thousands. What they’re seeing here is a megablock. A giant complex several stories high surrounds a courtyard, and on the inside of this courtyard is another building, shorter than the first. They just keep going like that, each layer being smaller in two dimensions than the one outside of it. In the very center is a 10,000 square meter park.

The fact that they’ve found this thing is shocking enough. It shows that the people who first came to this world weren’t just curious about the flora and fauna. They were planning to settle it with a significant human population who would never see the Extremus again, and would start a new civilization. Ilias was right, different people were making up their own definitions for the end state of the Extremus project. But that isn’t the only thing they find here. In the park is what looks like a downed jet. It seems to have crashed here many years ago. There was one apparent survivor, or maybe he had nothing to do with it. He comes out of a handcrafted structure next to the pond, and approaches to shake their hands. “Hi. Welcome to Sycamore Highfields.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: June 1, 2453

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The team transported the Sixth Key delegates, the Primus, and her assistant to the Executive Bunker on the other side of the world. From there, they watched the battle that the Transit and the Cormanu were fighting against the onslaught of Ochivari ships. The local squadrons watched from orbit, but did not participate. The public watched as well through minimal satellite feeds, though most of the cameras that were pointed  away from Earth were limited to military and governmental use. After only about fifteen minutes of the shooting, they all disappeared through a technicolor portal. No friend or foe was left on the battlefield. The theory was that the Transit was trying to spare the locals by moving the fighting to another universe, but it could have just as easily been more like the other way around. No one sent them a message, and when the team returned a year later, they still hadn’t heard from anyone, but a lot had changed. Carlin was now a folk hero.

In all this time, they never got a chance to find out what his time powers were, which appeared to run in the family. Apparently, he was kind of like a walking homestone, but with fewer limitations. He could send anyone back to any point in their life just after they departed from that moment using teleportation or time travel; not only the first instance. He was able to return all of the delegates to where they were when the Tree of Life first pulled them to the nucleus. Leona respectfully asked why he didn’t do that before, and he said that he wasn’t certain of the extent of his abilities. He didn’t know that he could relapse across universes, but Thack was able to check to make sure that everyone was back to where they belonged as if they had never left.

“Are you sure you want to use that word?” Mateo asked.

“I like it,” Carlin insisted.

“Well, it’s just that it has negative—”

“I understand. I like it,” he repeated.

“Okay.”

“I could relapse you too,” Carlin offered, “now that I know that I can even do it from all the way out here.”

“Can you do it to yourself?” Mateo asked him.

“No.”

“Then it’s a no for me too. We’re not gonna leave you behind. Though, perhaps Thack would like to go home?”

“She says that she must remain here for a certain amount of time,” Carlin explained. “I offer a way out to her every day.”

“Does it drain you of energy, doing what you do?” Mateo went on.

“It’s invigorating,” Carlin revealed. Even though the orbital battle last year was fought against an armada of ships, it wasn’t like they were the only Ochivari in the universe. More kept coming through smaller breaches on the surface of this planet. Whenever a new arrival was detected, the government would fly Carlin to that location to have him dispatch of the threat. They actually gave him a special hypersonic jet to accomplish this. He might need to travel anywhere in the world to complete his missions, and he was beloved by all for his efforts. Many were coming out of the bunkers, and trying to return to their normal lives as a result. Though, the government wasn’t sure whether that was the right call. One thing that helped them know when an Ochivar had snuck in was because there were fewer humans around for them to blend in with. They had yet to figure out how to detect the portals themselves, and were hoping that the team could help them. “I love all the sudden travel, though I know that the natives are hoping that you can make that simpler.”

“Are you up for that?” Leona asked Ramses.

“What, me? Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you almost died from equilibrium exposure,” she reminded him.

“Well, I had to test what it was like to be exposed in the equilibrium,” Ramses explained. “And now I know...it’s worse than a vacuum.”

“Next time, wear a helmet,” Leona suggested.

“Aye aye, Captain.” He was trying to keep it light, but Leona wanted to be a little more serious, so he nodded, and added, “I really will. I need to get the Ambassador back up to the surface, and re-embigify it, so I can start working on the detector in my lab.”

“Go ahead,” she allowed.

“I’ll go with you,” Angela offered. They both jumped away.

Soon after they were gone, Thack Natalie Collins entered the room. They were in the executive bunker situation room, where the military usually planned and led the war efforts. It was originally designed to support the continuity of government in the event of a total collapse of civilization, which hadn’t happened yet. However, they were always on the cusp of complete failure, which was why most of Primus Mihajlović’s supporters kept begging recently for her to begin operating out of here fulltime. The second major tactical  assault was all the reason they needed to basically force her to finally accept that, so she and Kineret had been down here for the last year, as was Thack, who was presently serving as a cultural advisor. “Welcome back to reality.”

“We weren’t sure that we would jump at all,” Leona told her. “Being in other universes makes it complicated.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Thack claimed.

“Would you know about the Transit, and the Cormanu?” Mateo pressed. “Where did they go when they left here?”

Thack smiled in a way that made it seem like she was about to school them on the subject. “Psychic abilities are interesting. For the most part, we’re not talking about knowing things without learning them, though that’s definitely part of it. The majority of psychics are limited by their connection to others. That’s what it is; the links that bind us together. Now, you would think that this means I should be able to find our friends wherever they are, especially since I have formed close personal relationships with the Hawthornes, however, I believe that they have traveled beyond my scope. They have gone to a universe where no one else lives. Yes, I’m connected to the people that I already know, but not to anyone else there, because they don’t exist. You’ve been to a handful of branes yourselves, and you’ve always found people to already be living there, such as the one we’re in right now. But most aren’t like that. Most are dead, or lifeless anyway. In the infinity, I think most can’t even harbor life at all, meaning that you can’t go to them, or you’ll just straight up die. I can tell you for a fact that our friends did not end up in one of those extreme scenarios, because I see their futures. But there are plenty of others out there where life is safe, but never evolved. And again, I can’t see them. If you were in the middle of a fight with the Ochivari, you would probably try to go to one of these places, so the conflict did not endanger the lives of innocents.”

“I would if I could, yes,” Mateo agreed. “But just to clarify, you can’t watch them remotely, even when you concentrate, and you can’t guess when they’ll return, if ever?”

Thack shook her head. “I’m saying that I don’t know where they went when they left,” she explained, quite careful with her language. It probably wasn’t safe for them to know too much about the future. She faced Carlin. “Mister McIver, I will be leaving today. Please prepare to relapse me back to Voldisilaverse.”

“I’m ready, we can go right now,” Carlin replied.

“No, no. Mister Abdulrashid needs time to build his little device. When we’ll go, he’ll take measurements of the bulk energy that you’ll be tapping into. That data will be vital for the goal of detecting arrivals as they happen.”

The Primus walked into the room with Kineret, having heard enough from the hallway. “Will we ever be able to predict them, so we can dispatch a team ahead of time? We’re always worried that some remain...somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Thack repeated herself from earlier.

Naraschone seemed to be used to having to allow Thack her secrets. “Anyway, the military requires this room for a battle exercise for one of their new fighter jets.”

This was where the team happened to be last year when their proverbial hourglass ran out, and they were sent forward in time a year. They weren’t entirely sure when it would happen, since their original pattern was tied to midnight central in Salmonverse. This was a version of Earth, and the bunker was located in Colorado, so their best guess was that it would be the same, using the local time zone borders, but it happened at 22:00 instead, when it was only 23:00 in Kansas. They did not know why.

“We were just leaving,” Thack said respectfully.

As they were exiting, Mateo pulled Thack aside since this was evidently his last time to talk to her. “When I was being possessed by Amber and Sanaa, two others managed to sneak into my mind. One was Meredarchos, I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

“I have,” Thack said, nodding.

“The other; they were crying for help. Would you have any idea who that could be, or would you not know anything about that?” Hopefully that didn’t come off as harsh.

“It could be a number of people,” Thack answered. “It could be me. It could be one of the people on any of the bulk traveling machines that were here last year, or of the people who travel using other means. It could be you, from your future.” She looked away from him as if her own words had given her an idea. “Or from your past.”

“No, I would remember that,” Mateo insisted.

“Aren’t you missing some personal time? Think back.”

Mateo winced, not knowing what she was talking about, but then he realized that she might be onto something. He did disappear once, from the Third Rail, in the Russian mine where they were looking for timonite to rescue Trina. When he came back, they thought that he had only jumped forward in time a couple of days, but he had always secretly had the feeling that he had actually been detoured somewhere in the meantime, and had since lost his memories of it. He never really talked about that with the others, but it was super weird that he just happened to swallow the one rock that they had been searching for. “Maybe you’re right. You really think that it was just me?”

“Oh, it’s only an idea. You have an opportunity to investigate that you didn’t have before, though. If you don’t have anything else going on, you could talk to Carlin.”

That was an interesting recommendation, one which he should probably take.

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